The Avery Historical Museum - the world's most famous heritage site of its kind - has closed and will leave its Smethwick home of nearly 90 years.

Talks are under way to move the world-renowned collection, which include relics from the Boulton and Watt foundry which helped trigger the Industrial Revolution, to another unnamed museum site in the region following the closure.

American owner Avery Weigh-Tronix is in talks with the other museum in a bid to secure the collection of priceless historical artefacts for future generations.

It is understood that 40 people have been made redundant.

Based in Soho Foundry, the Avery Museum was opened in 1927 to house the historical archives of weighing company W&T Avery, now Avery Weigh-Tronix. In the decades since, the museum's collection has expanded to feature a comprehensive collection of artefacts which chart the history of weighing, as well as relics from the Boulton and Watt Foundry which previously occupied the same site.

Among the items found in the archive was a ticket from the personal weighing machine lost in the Titanic disaster.

The machine had been supplied by Henry Pooley and Son, a Birmingham firm which was later acquired by W&T Avery. Former W&T Avery managing director William Hipkins also perished in the 1912 sinking.

But now the Smethwick-based collection, which has been open to visitors by appointment only throughout its near 90-year history, looks set for a new home.

Avery Weigh-Tronix global communications manager Laura Wilks said: "The museum is going through a period of change.

"As a business, we have to recognise that the museum is only open by appointment only which is a shame when the collection is of national and international importance. We want to keep it all together but it is likely that it is not going to be on our site any more.

"We hope that by reaching an agreement with another museum, we can make it more widely available. I cannot name the museum because we do not have their permission to do so yet, but it would be in the West Midlands. I am hopeful that all interested parties will agree that this is in the interests of the collection and the wider public."

Ms Wilks confirmed that museum curator Andrew Lound, a well-known West Midland public speaker who also lectures on astronomy and other issues, had left in December. She declined to comment on other reported job cuts.

She said: "Andrew has been instrumental in helping us to get as far as we have got in negotiations with the other museum. It is a matter of formalising an informal agreement at the moment.

"I do not know how long the process is likely to take, it could take quite a while to get everything formalised. But we are working hard to make sure that the collection is there for future generations.

"It started off as a small collection and there is still a lot of interest in it. But we have to recognise that we are not museum experts. It would be better to hand the collection over to a museum that is properly qualified to handle them."

A former Avery worker, who asked not to be named, said: "This is the largest weighing museum in the world. There is a huge amount of history there, with the weighing artefacts and the Boulton and Watt stuff. It should be secured for future generations."